I tend to feel rhythm in my torso. Maybe that’s because I play seated and my torso is the only part that can move. But when it’s there, everything else follows and the hand is connected to it. I like to tell my students that a lot of music happens below the neck, in your heart and in your gut. They really can get a little heady with things and I have to remind them: music is first and foremost a way for us to move together.”

Vijay Iyer, 45, is an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, producer, electronic musician, and writer based in New York City. He became a Professor of the Arts at Harvard University in early 2014. Born in Albany and raised in Fairport, New York, Iyer is the son of Indian Tamil immigrants to the United States. He received 15 years of Western classical training on violin beginning at the age of 3. He began playing the piano by ear in his childhood and is mostly self-taught on that instrument. After completing an undergraduate degree in mathematics and physics at Yale University, Iyer attended the University of California, Berkeley, initially to pursue a doctorate in physics. Iyer continued to pursue his musical interests, playing in ensembles. (Source: Wiki)

At this moment, there must be more raindrops falling on the surface of the island than there are humans on earth, perhaps more than all the humans who ever lived. I’ve thought of raindrops as tiny and insignificant things, but against the scale of earth itself, they’re scarcely smaller than I am. On what basis, then, can I consider myself more important? Koyukon elders say that each kind of weather, including rain, has its own spirit and consciousness. If this is true, there must be a spirit within every raindrop, as in all else that inhabits the earth. In this sense, we are two equal forms of being who stand in mutual regard. I bend down to look at a crystal droplet hanging from a hemlock needle and know my own image is trapped inside. It’s humbling to think of myself this way. In the broader perspective of earth, I am nothing more than a face in a raindrop.